Today is release day for Alllyson Johnson’s debut historical novel, The Three Lives of Mary Sutton, perfect time for an interview. Thank you, Allyson, for taking time for answer questions.
Allyson, would you introduce yourself to the readers?
I’m a California native, but spent time in East Texas as a child, returning to California in my teens. I intended to teach high school English as a career, but the Baby Bust of the early 1970’s led to school closures, and I started a part-time job with a company in a new industry, computer software. (At that time, folks thought “software” was a euphemism for “lingerie.”) Surviving several bankruptcies, department closures, and failed mergers over the next decades. I ended up in International Sales, traveling literally around the world in support of clients.
When I retired, I had an idea of becoming a writer. I got a job as an op-ed columnist for our local paper and began working on some short stories and piecing together my first try at a novel.
Please introduce us to your character Mary “Mame” Sutton.
Mary Sutton was my great-grandmother, born in 1857. Photographs show her with a fashionable hourglass figure, a heart-shaped face, large eyes, and a determined set to her mouth. Mary was the oldest of seven children, four of whom survived their mother’s death after the seventh childbirth.
Without spoilers, tell us about The Three Lives of Mary Sutton.
Mary, eighteen years old, small but stubborn and strong-willed, takes over as the lady of the house after her mother’s death, hoping to guide her brother and three sisters as their mother would have wanted. But her father has other ideas. The Three Lives of Mary Sutton tells how Mary and her younger sister Lizzie strike out on their own in rebellion against their autocratic father. In following their life paths, the reader gets to see some of the gritty underside of the Gilded Age of New York City. Mary knows about the Vanderbilts and the Astors, but they are not part of her world.
I understand Mame is based on your great-grandmother. What made you decide to tell a fictionalized version of her life now?
A cousin sent me a carton full of genealogical research and documents that my aunt had collected. In rummaging through it, I found a few letters from Mary Sutton to her sister Lizzie and to her son, my grandfather. The letters made me curious: How could a young woman of that time manage to do what she did? What drove her to it? (Sorry, I’m avoiding spoilers here!) In researching what had happened, there were great gaps – so I filled them in with my imaginings of what might have happened. And gradually I was in the middle of a story.
During your research, what was the most fascinating thing you learned about Manhattan and Brooklyn in the Gilded Age?
In my research I stumbled upon the Nursery and Children’s Hospital, a charitable organization on Staten Island run by Dr. Susan Lukens, a pioneer in women’s health and one of the first female doctors to head a hospital. Her career is worthy of a book in itself; she and the other women students at medical school were pelted with mud and rocks by the male students as they left classes. But she persevered. The conditions of admission to the Nursery and Children’s Hospital were considered quite liberal for the time, but, to 21st century eyes, they seem almost barbaric.
Mary’s path crosses that of Susan Lukens in the course of Three Lives as well as the paths of several other historical figures.
Everyone’s journey to publishing is different. Tell us about writing your first book. Was that the one that was published? How did you become a published author?
I began writing my first book in odd moments at work, based on romantic daydreams and some of the exotic locations I had visited on business trips. When I retired, I thought I could put the pieces together easily, but it took two writing groups and several years to get it into shape, and I couldn’t find an agent, so I put it aside. Later I began the genealogical exploration that led to The Three Lives of Mary Sutton, and early on I had lunch with a woman my age who was just publishing her first novel. She told me “At my age, no agent would look at my book, thinking I didn’t have it in me to write another, so I decided to get it published myself.” She also told me that “She Writes Press is the Cadillac of hybrid publishers,” so when my novel was accepted for publication there, I went for it.
What books were your favorites as a child?
The Oz books by L. Frank Baum – my mother had several first editions with beautiful illustrations, and I gobbled them up, then borrowed the ones that Mom didn’t have from bookish friends. The Black Stallion series by Walter Farley, and Albert Payson Terhune’s books about collie dogs. Robert Lawson’s Mr. Twiggs’ Mistake, about a boy and his giant pet mole. William Pene du Bois’ Peter Graves, about a boy who makes friends with a wild-eyed inventor, (Predating Back to the Future by some decades.)
If you had to recommend 5 books for a person to read to get a feel for you and your reading taste, what 5 would you pick?
Anthony Trollope’s Doctor Thorne, Nevil Shute’s A Town like Alice, J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder, Paulette Jiles’ News of the World.
As a librarian, I always like to ask this of an author. Tell us about a library or librarian in your life.
I was the youngest in my class as a child growing up in East Texas, and a bit of an outsider due to my Yankee background. (Anyone not born in a former Confederate state was considered a Yankee.). My favorite place was the Children’s wing of the Nicholson Memorial Library, a wonderful old brick building with rooms lined with mahogany bookshelves, a stone fireplace at each end, window seats where you could curl up with a book, stereoscopes on the tables in the Children’s Wing where you could see exotic places in three dimensions if you adjusted the slider correctly. I read my way through Alcott, Baum, Coatsworth, Enright, du Bois, Farley, Keene, Lawson, Streatfield, Terhune… books about girls growing up, girls transported to fairyland, girls having exotic adventures, girls in big families, lonely orphaned girls. I also read books featuring horses and dogs – these didn’t have many girls in them. Finally I had read about everything I could, even the Hardy Boys series, which had almost no girls. I asked the librarian – what next?
I remember her as a bespectacled woman with tightly-curled iron-gray hair and a kindly smile. She tested me with a few questions to make sure I really had read all that I said, and then she gave me permission to go upstairs to the Teen Room, though I was only ten. What joy! A whole new world of teen-age romances by Lambert and du Jardin, adventures by Pease, Nordhoff and Hall, family stories by the Galbraiths, and many others. Thanks for asking this question – I enjoyed remembering!
About the Author
Allyson Johnson is a native Californian. After majoring in English literature at Stanford University, she had a brief career as a high school teacher and a longer career in sales/marketing with technology companies. For the past twelve years she has written a monthly op-ed column and worked as a freelance stringer for a local weekly newspaper, the Los Altos Town Crier. She also maintains a travel/commentary blog (www.allysonjohnson.com). When not writing she assembles quilts, practices calligraphy, and attacks weeds. Johnson currently resides in Los Altos, California.
